Homework / test English to Spanish Art/Literary Poetry & Literature guidebook

In the 1880s synthetic aniline dyes were developed and the demand for cochineal tailed off, leaving a legacy of attractive but hazardous prickly pears across the landscape. Old plants can be enormous, their bulbous and twisted woody bases rearing among the skeletal fibrous ovals of long dead pads, providing a playground for rats living in their ferocious fastness and feasting through the winter on lingering, squishy fruits. The story doesn’t quite end there though because cochineal is still used in certain items of food and drink as, unlike the chemical alternatives, it is not highly toxic.